Any suspects in shooting down of MH17 passenger jet will be put on trial in the Netherlands

Any suspects believed to have brought down the MH17 passenger jet
over Ukraine in 2014 will be tried in the Netherlands, the Dutch
government has announced.

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The Malaysia Airlines flight crashed into a field in the war-torn
eastern region of Ukraine on 17 July, 2014, killing all 298
passengers on board. Some 196 of those were Dutch.

The service was travelling from Amsterdam's Schiphol airport to
Kuala Lumpur when it was knocked out of the sky. Dutch officials
promised prosecutions days after the disaster - but even now they
have yet to name any individual suspects.

Last year
prosecutors named two Russian speakers -Andrei Ivanovich and
Nikolai Fyodorovich - whom they wanted to speak with in
connection with the crash, but they stopped short of accusing
them of direct involvement.

Tjibbe Joustra, the chairman of the Dutch Safety Board, told the Volksrant
newspaper that actual punishments being handed out to people
was unlikely and that suspects were more likely to be convicted
and sentenced in their absence.

A report by Dutch air investigators in 2015 concluded that the
Boeing 777 was most likely destroyed by a missile fired from a
Russian-made Buk launcher. A second international investigation
in 2016 said it was fired from a field controlled by pro-Russian
separatists.

caption

A Russian Buk missile launcher.

source

AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

Investigators struggled to properly access the crash site given
that it was in the middle of a war zone. Fragments of airline and
the remains of victims were strewn across a huge field, posing a
huge challenge to experts trying to piece together what happened.

First responders also struggled initially to deliver families the
remains of their loved ones, which initially had to be hauled out
of Ukraine on a giant refrigerated train.

caption

The refrigerated train that carried the remains of MH17 victims from Ukraine to the Netherlands, a process that took many days.

source

AP Photo/ Sergei Chuzavkov

Surviving fragments of the aircraft were eventually pieced back
together inside a hanger, allowing scientists to establish what
may have happened.

caption

A reconstruction of fragments of the Boeing 777 airliner.

source

REUTERS/Michael Kooren

Dutch officials swore to launch criminal action against those
responsible the day after the crash. But it has taken almost
three years for the process to be agreed. An attempt in 2015 to
set up an international court to deal with the attack was blocked
by Russia.

The statement said the Joint Investigation Team countries had
"decided that the suspects should be prosecuted in the
Netherlands, a process that will be rooted in ongoing
international cooperation and support."

The JIT consists of Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the
Netherlands, and Ukraine, all of which had a significant number
of citizens on board.

Below is a breakdown of the nationalities on board, released by
Malaysia Airlines in the days after the crash. It is not clear
why it does not tally exactly with the later Dutch figure of 196.
It is possible that dual nationals could be counted different
ways or that those originally listed as unverified have been
confirmed as Dutch. Here is the list: